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Luis Mendez Garcia
Professor Florian
English 114 B
March 8, 2014


Prison/ Utopia Relations

Utopia written by Thomas More is a book about a newly discovered island in the fifteen
century. It is a place where everything seems so coordinated as described in the book and a
lovely place to be and live during that time era. It goes into detail how the society in Utopia live
their daily lives and how they do the farming and cultivating, choose their mayors per city, and
how in Utopia the population is controlled. In other words Utopia is based on natural reason and
justice, contrary of the rest of Europe during the time.
Utopia: an imaginary place in which the government, laws, and social conditions are
perfect (Merriam Webster). Utopia is referred to a happy place and throughout the book is truly
seemed like it, but there were moments in the books description that set me off. This imaginary
island of Utopia really wasn't a perfect place, in fact it was seen more as dystopia. Utopia could
be taken into different aspects if in fact it is a perfect place or not. When reading the book I read
clues that stated this wasn't a Utopia of any sort it was much worse than what was being
described as a perfect place. Utopia was a cyclopean open prison surrounded by water on the
coastline of the Island. The citizens of Utopia all wore the same clothes as everyone was alike,
just like in a real prison in todays society, utopian citizens have no privacy, similar to the
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prisons where everything on the inside is open for anyone to see what your up to, when utopian
citizens steal or commit a crime they are enslaved, relating to when in the real world you commit
a crime you get imprisoned, finally each district in Utopia has 3 representatives (Utopia 75), in
the prison system there is certain correctional officers per area in the prison that they are in
charge for.
Their mode of dress is the same throughout the island and through all stages of life,
except for distinctions between the sexes and between the married and single(Utopia 63). Since
all the utopians wear the same clothes except for some few exceptions the prisons in the United
States are the same. For example, in the Los Angeles County Jail multiple colors are used to
distinguish between the inmates, different colors but the same clothing, similarly with the
utopians to distinguish the sexes and the married. In the county jail white represents the general
inmate population that arent high risk nor have medical issues, yellow is used to classify the
medically ill, red, blue, green are all special handling usually for those who have more than a
million dollar bail, these are the more dangerous inmates, and the orange is for male juveniles
and female work furlough inmates (lasdhq). Although there are many different classifications or
colors to represent certain inmates it related to the utopians because essentially they are all alike
and they could relate to one another in the sense of what each inmate is in. It resembles for the
utopians in the sense of what their occupation is which could go back to the inmates in different
colors it could also be an occupation.
Although these two could relate the utopians have no privacy. No house is without
doors opening both onto the street and into the garden; these double doors, which yield to a touch
of the hand and close of themselves, permit anyone to enter. As a result no place is ever private:
indeed they exchange the actual houses by lot every tenth year(Utopia 61). This same aspect is
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with the design of the prisons that everything is open and nothing is private. As Ive visited
before countless times the Los Angeles County prison, Ive seen how the layout is from the
inside. Especially where the inmates sleep, there is a big room that could maybe house 50 or
more inmates and the bed is the only space they have as theirs. Other than that everything else as
you once claimed privacy is gone within the prison. Basically everything you do is seen and
nothing is hidden from the other inmates or the correctional officers in the cellblock. I witnessed
this during the visits in the third floor of the twin towers. Same as in utopia the people didnt
have say any privacy even they claimed they did they really didnt. The aspect was to really hide
this from the citizens because they trusted the people in Armarout (capital of Utopia). They also
trusted the representatives that they had from each district, to make decisions for them. In Utopia
when you do something illegal, death isnt the answer to the higher authorities in the island, they
create ways to punish the criminals.
When committing a crime in utopia the person is enslaved instead of being killed (utopia
91). The citizens of utopia are being enslaved for committing crimes and other injustice acts in
society. Well this seems to be a open prison in the sense that they are working for the
community for free to pay for their shameful acts of dishonor in society. An open prison as I
call it because the citizens are tied up with gold shackles but working in the fields and doing
work others would do in the city as a routine every day. Now this can also happen for inmates in
a real prison doing community work. They might clean the highways and do other useful
community in a more controlled and observed environment. Even though the citizens that have
committed the shameful acts are enslaved, eventually with time of working and showing that
they are loyal to go back with society they could be released. Similarly goes for inmates that
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have completed their time in solidary confinement they are released, but it takes a while for them
to get used to society once again. The transition experienced by individuals as they leave prison
and return home to their families and communities is fundamentally a dynamic, social
process(Transitions from Prison to Community: Understanding Individual Pathways 92). In
other words it takes time and adjusting to become part of society in both the real world with
prisoners and in the book as well. Utopia is a place where they put their trust on the chosen
people in each district to make the right decisions and represent them in the best way possible.
Each district has three representatives or miniature majors with power, to control their
own district. It makes sense more now that utopia is in fact more prison like than actually
heaven. In the prisons there is a certain number of correctional officers liable to a certain area or
cellblocks, with inmates. This is broken down further, so for every correctional officer there is
about 10.3 inmates and those ten inmates are the responsibility of just that one correctional
officer that has power (Bureau of Justice Statistics 5). This incorporates the power of the
representatives that the utopians have compared to the authorities that each correctional officer
has. For example each correctional officer represents his own inmates and has to watch them and
make decisions for these inmates that cannot be made within them.
Utopia was made to seem like a beautiful place to stay, live, civilization is great, no
problems, always happy people, and with set schedules. In reality this was a very antique or early
stage of prisons because they had no privacy, they weren't able to speak out for themselves they
had other people to do it for them, and they really didn't have freedom. They only had freedom
within the district, but on the outside of the district there would be horrendous punishments for
stepping out of the district. It was more of early open imprisonment within the island, without
the realization of what the truth really was, very dystopia.
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Works Cited
Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 06 Mar. 2014.
More, Thomas and Paul Turner. Utopia. London: Penguin, 1984. Print.

"Prisoners." N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Mar. 2014. <http://www.lasdhq.org/
divisions/leadership-training-div/bureaus/mpp/5-03.pdf>.

Stephen, James J. "Bureau of Justice Statistics." Census of State and Federal
CorrectionalFacilities, Oct. 2008. Web. 9 Mar. 2014.

Transitions from Prison to Community: Understanding Individual Pathways
Christy A. Visher and Jeremy TravisAnnual Review of Sociology , Vol. 29, (2003) , pp.
89-113












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